Bob Rae

As I grow older, I have had to discard some ideas and policies because they no longer make sense. This strikes me as entirely healthy. I would invite others to do the same.

— Bob Rae

Change is the cliché of our time. It also happens to be the prevailing truth.

— Bob Rae

" many on the right confuse the "is" of globalization with the "ought" of simply accepting all its effects. They preach a political quietism that is really just a cloak for greed.

— Bob Rae

The emergence of the market model in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia is no accident. It is not the product of a corporate conspiracy. It is the consequence of hard lessons learned from cold experience.

— Bob Rae

The premise of neo-conservatives is that markets left to their own devices will produce the best possible result, and that political interference is not required. This defies the human reality that people are not commodities, and simply refuse to behave as if they were.

— Bob Rae

We do not yet have a politics that is equal to the economics around us.

— Bob Rae

History has only ended for those caught inside the Marxist hothouse. For the rest of us the argument is just getting interesting.

— Bob Rae

To suggest that the global market-place of the twenty first century there will be no role for the state and the public sector is clearly nonsense.

— Bob Rae

Self-interest is a necessary but hardly a sufficient basis for a decent society.

— Bob Rae

The major cuts in federal and provincial transfers to social service agencies, health care, education, and social housing over the past several years have not bee matched by an explosion in private giving. Nor will they ever be.

— Bob Rae

Like sailors, we cannot change the weather or the direction of the wind. But we change the direction of our sails.

— Bob Rae

Governments steer better than they row.

— Bob Rae

Angry teachers can defeat governments,

— Bob Rae

We spend the vast bulk of money in the health, welfare, and education systems in the later years of life. Yet it is in the earliest years that life chances are moulded and set.

— Bob Rae

Constitutions do not emerge perfectly formed from the brain of the philosopher king, as Mr. Trudeau himself discovered in 1980 and 1981. They are always messy processes that are easier to knock down or tear apart than they are to construct.

— Bob Rae

The idea of politics is in need of defence.

— Bob Rae

Politics is about the persuasion required to move people to judgement.

— Bob Rae

If the rising tide fails to lift all boats, resentments will increase.

— Bob Rae